When choosing the right insurance policy for your home care, hospice, medical staffing, or other facility within the home healthcare industry and beyond, it’s imperative that your coverage is coming from a high quality, long-term oriented carrier or program. They should specifically serve the home health care, hospice, and medical staffing industry and be able to cover the full spectrum of services that your facility provides. Insurance coverage is also about more than just covering your property or professional liability exposure; it’s about providing a robust risk management program that includes assistance with the following key items:
Hiring and Screening: As we discussed in a previous blog post, screening home health care and hospice caregivers as thoroughly as possible makes you a better risk for an insurance company, and supports high quality staff and related patient care.
HR Compliance: New requirements have been put in place and will continue to evolve as the changes from the Health Care Reform take effect. Many insurance carriers offer online tools and assistance in the human resources area.
Background Check Services: While not unique to home healthcare agencies, thorough background checks in the health care sector are extremely important. Many states now have legislation that protects the care and safety of patients treated by home healthcare workers, with more states being added on a regular basis.
Driver Safety Training: Home health care workers, and other medical staff that travel for business, are at ahigher risk for motor vehicle-related injuries and accidents as they drive from client to client location.
Patient Transfer and Lifting Techniques and Training: Staff in the medical field who are tasked with transferring and lifting patients are at risk of back injury and/or musculoskeletal disorders in relation to their job. Ongoing training, education and workshops in this basic area of work functionality is key.
Incident Reporting: Many home healthcare staff may be intimidated by incident reports, assuming that they are more likely to be reprimanded if their offense is documented. However incident reporting can be one of the best ways to defend the healthcare worker and your facility or agency should a legal claim occur.
Contractual Review: An employment contract should never be taken lightly. All local and federal rules must be followed when developing such contracts, as not doing so could result in a costly employment practices liability claim later on.
At Manchester Specialty Programs, you will find all the insurance coverage you need to operate your business, and all in one program. We deliver specialty insurance programs that are specifically designed for home care and hospice firms in both medical and support roles. Our comprehensive home health care and hospice provider insurance program is designed to help these agencies continue to provide the important services they offer throughout our communities. Carriers in our program are highly rated and offer a variety of free or discounted risk management tools and services to assist in running your business. To find out more about our operation and all our specialty insurance programs, you or your local insurance broker can give us a call today at 855-972-9399.